One of the vendors at work invited us to an iron chef competition at one of those places that offer cooking classes. I thought we were going to a class and then would come home with some meals ready to freeze. But when we got there, we were assigned to two teams (iron chef-style) and given an hour and a half to make an Italian meal from the ingredients provided. There were two people in my group with cooking experience and one of them was myself. The other guy volunteered to make the sauce, so I supervised everything else. Well, the first thing I did was go outside to harvest some herbs, because dried herbs aren't as good as fresh ones. Throughout the game, I scurried from station to station directing people and making decisions on which ingredients to use. They did give us recipes but suggested that we not follow them and be more creative. I created fillings for a sundried tomato and red pepper cheese ravioli and an artichoke and basil cheese ravioli. The last ten minutes were a mad scramble to get the bread, bruschetta and croutons ready, and present the dishes as if they were from a nice restaurant.

The judges took samples of everything and disappeared so we could not see their reactions. Some of the food (from both teams) wasn't that great.

Then we tried our food and the other team's food. I wasn't sure who would win it. Their dishes were much more creative than my team's, but we had more refined dishes following a more traditional Italian menu. We won the iron chef competition because our food tasted better (yeah!) and because the team collaborated and communicated well.

So it was a nice confidence booster for me, because I was consulted as the 'expert' and managed to stay on top of three cooking stations. The new cooking skill I learned was how to coddle an egg. Being a chef would be an exhausting career, but I think I would enjoy working amidst chaos. Perhaps the office environment is too sanguine. It's just a fleeting thought, a brief daydream while I'm locked down with golden handcuffs. When I have done volunteer work in the past, I'm happiest when insanely busy.